Cloak and Dagger! C.I.A. in hot water again!

The C.I.A. is supposed to be a cloak and dagger type of organization so I am surprised at how much it has been in the news lately.

First they put the Ice on George Bush's flights of fancy and paranoia by reveling that Iran dropped their nuclear ambitions back in 2003, and now they are in hot water for destroying torture tapes so that no one can accuse them of any wrongdoing!

According to the intelligence agency, the tapes were destroyed to protect the identity of CIA agents and because they no longer had intelligence value.

Bullshit!

This C.I.A. is no different than any other law enforcement or security organization in that it will close ranks to protect itself and any information we get will be after the fact!

The New York Times, which broke the story, quotes current and former government officials as saying the CIA destroyed the tapes in 2005 as it faced Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention programme.

Officials feared the tapes could have raised doubts about the legality of the CIA's techniques, the newspaper says.

The tapes are thought to have shown the interrogation in 2002 of a number of terror suspects, including Abu Zubaydah, who had been a chief recruiter for the al-Qaeda network.

The Associated Press news agency on Thursday obtained a letter sent to all CIA employees by the agency's current director, Michael Hayden, explaining why the footage was destroyed.

In the internal memo, Mr Hayden told staff that the CIA had begun taping interrogations as an internal check in 2002 and decided to delete the videos because they lacked any "legal or internal reason" to keep them.

Once again, with gusto, Bullshit!

The CIA acknowledges that these early interrogations were harsh, but Mr Hayden says that the CIA's internal watchdogs saw the tapes in 2003 and verified that the techniques used were legal.

"The destruction of these tapes appears to be a part of an extensive, long-term pattern of misusing executive authority to insulate individuals from criminal prosecution for torture and abuse," an ACLU statement said.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, President George W Bush authorised the use of "harsh techniques" in the interrogation of suspected terrorists.

According to one correspondent, those techniques are alleged to have included water-boarding, a method in which a suspect is held down and gagged while water is poured into his mouth in order to simulate drowning.

Human rights groups say that water-boarding - and other techniques allegedly used by the CIA - can be defined as torture under various international treaties to which the US is a signatory.

The Bush administration has always maintained that it does not allow the use of torture but the BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says the news is likely to trigger more questions about the interrogation techniques used by the CIA.

There are also questions over whether CIA agents withheld information from the courts and a presidential commission.

These questions seem to be rather silly since we know that, for example, police departments will hide evidence, change facts, whitewash information and outright lie to protect themselves and the C.I.A. makes them look like amateurs.

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God at www.God-101.com and the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

Bombs Away!

If you think it can't happen, think again!

A statement has been released by authorities in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia.

Aided by the CIA, they set up a sting operation last summer that led to the arrest of a Russian man who tried to sell a small amount of nuclear-bomb grade uranium from a plastic bag in his inside jacket pocket, officials said. (Did he think he was selling watches?)

The arrest underscored concerns about the possibility of militants acquiring nuclear bomb-making material on the black market, although there was no suggestion that happened in this particular case.

"Given the serious consequences of the detonation of an improvised nuclear explosive device, even small numbers of incidents involving HEU [highly enriched uranium] or plutonium are of very high concern," said Melissa Fleming of the world's nuclear watchdog, the United Nation's International Atomic Energy Agency.

Details of the investigation, which also involved the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Energy Department, were provided to the media by U.S. officials and Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili.

Authorities say they do not know how the man acquired the nuclear material or whether his claims of access to much larger quantities were true. He and three Georgian accomplices are in Georgian custody and not co-operating with investigators.

According to his account, during an investigation in South Ossetia, a Georgian undercover agent posing as a rich foreign buyer made contact with the Russian seller in North Ossetia, which is part of Russia.

The man was arrested and sentenced to eight to 10 years in prison on smuggling charges. His accomplices were sentenced on lesser charges.

Russian authorities took a sample of the material but failed to offer any assistance despite requests for help from the Georgians, Merabishvili said.

Georgian attempts to trace the nuclear material since the arrest and confirm whether the man had access to larger quantities have foundered due to a lack of co-operation from Russia. (Russia has tense relations with Georgia, which has been troubled by Russia's support for separatists in two breakaway Georgian border regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.)

Merabishvili said that he was revealing the story out of frustration with Russia's response and the need to illustrate the dangers of a breakdown in security co-operation in the region.

A message left with the press office of the Russian Embassy was not returned. A duty officer at the Russian Foreign Ministry told the Associated Press that there was no one authorized to comment on Wednesday night.

The Georgians then asked for U.S. assistance. Agents from the FBI and the Energy Department took the material back to the United States, where it was tested by the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration.

"The material was analyzed by agency nuclear experts and confirmed to be highly enriched uranium," said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the agency.

None of the U.S. officials would confirm the exact weight of the seizure or its quality, but Merabishvili said it was about 100 grams of uranium enriched by more than 90 per cent.

Uranium enriched at 90 per cent is weapons grade but the quantity was not nearly enough for an actual bomb. (They would need about 100X as much!)

The Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment on the case. FBI spokesman Richard Kolko confirmed that the FBI was involved in the investigation and called it a success, but he would not provide further details either.

Your "duck and cover" scribe;
Allan W Janssen